Lifeboat Foundation

Circa 2020

A superthin electrolyte with three layers could deliver safe, fast-charging batteries.

These self-powered robots, which were inspired by water-walking insects, delivered chemicals while partially submerged in a solution.

British Lithium explains their pilot method of lithium extraction at its pilot plant, which was built over seven months and funded by government innovation agency Innovate UK:

Our unique pilot plant approach incorporates all processing stages – from quarrying through to high purity lithium carbonate production. This includes crushing, grinding, and beneficiating the ore, custom-built electric calcination at low temperatures, acid-free leaching, and multiple purification steps that include ion-exchange.

The company will manufacture 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of lithium carbonate per day from early 2022 in its pilot plant, which it says is enough to demonstrate its commercial value to customers. Once the process is fully developed, British Lithium will begin work on building a full-scale plant.

An artificial intelligence (AI) system that can identify diabetic retinopathy (DR) without physician assistance, including the most serious form that puts patients at risk of blindness, has outperformed expectations in a clinical trial. The commercial system successfully detected the presence and severity of the disease in 97% of eyes analysed. Deployment of such AI systems in primary care facilities for use by non-specialists could significantly increase access to eye exams that include DR evaluation, aiding in the diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

An artificial intelligence system that simplifies diabetes retinal screening could help save the vision of millions of people around the world.

Yahoo Finance’s Dani Romero reports on the increasing use of robots and automation by restaurants and retailers amid the pandemic and labor shortages.
Don’t Miss: Valley of Hype: The Culture That Built Elizabeth Holmes.
WATCH HERE:

Watch the 2021 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/gx-OzwHpM9k.

Continue reading “Robot use on the rise as restaurants and retailers experience labor shortages” »

B.1.640.2 was discovered in a traveler returning from Cameroon and has a high number of mutations. And a first “flurona” case has been confirmed in Israel.

The first PCs to incorporate Microsoft’s Pluton security chip will be available from Lenovo this May.

Exercise for weight loss and its link to long life is explored in new research. Exercise carries many health benefits, independent of how much weight loss occurs.

Hi everyone, I’m Larry Tabak. I’ve served as NIH’s Principal Deputy Director for over 11 years, and I will be the acting NIH director until a new permanent director is named. In my new role, my day-to-day responsibilities will certainly increase, but I promise to carve out time to blog about some of the latest research progress on COVID-19 and any other areas of science that catch my eye.

I’ve also invited the directors of NIH’s Institutes and Centers (ICs) to join me in the blogosphere and write about some of the cool science in their research portfolios. I will publish a couple of posts to start, then turn the blog over to our first IC director. From there, I envision alternating between posts from me and from various IC directors. That way, we’ll cover a broad array of NIH science and the tremendous opportunities now being pursued in biomedical research.

Since I’m up first, let’s start where the NIH Director’s Blog usually begins each year: by taking a look back at Science’s Breakthroughs of 2021. The breakthroughs were formally announced in December near the height of the holiday bustle. In case you missed the announcement, the biomedical sciences accounted for six of the journal Science’s 10 breakthroughs. Here, I’ll focus on four biomedical breakthroughs, the ones that NIH has played some role in advancing, starting with Science’s editorial and People’s Choice top-prize winner: